


(all I ever wanted was) The Right Kind of Light

by Zaccari



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Bandom Big Bang, Community: bandombigbang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaccari/pseuds/Zaccari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a stranger where his best friend used to be, a clusterfuck where his marriage once was, an empty bed that should hold his son and Pete doesn't know what he did to deserve this as his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(all I ever wanted was) The Right Kind of Light

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'ing and hand holding done by the amazing raggedy_edge, with some other kick ass beta'ing done by Caroline, Lizibabes and Zinnea.
> 
> But having said that, all remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone because I'm a renown fiddler.
> 
> This also ignores all, and I do mean all, canon type time lines. Every last one of them, seriously. 
> 
> And lastly, so fake, so very fake, and by that I mean nothing is true...you know that right.

~Pete’s POV~

If my ego really is one of the biggest in the known universe (and more than a few internet sites assure me it is), being able to walk into a club in my home town that holds, maybe, two hundred people tops and not have anybody so much as glance at me once, let alone twice, would be a bitchin’ blow to it. C’mon it’s not like I haven’t been in the news lately to remind everybody how Me I am.

I guess it’s a good thing those impeccable sources are all mistaken then, isn’t it? Because even I know said ego is, at best, only in the top ten. If it was in, like, the top five, it’d make for a much better date I’m sure.

Yeah, right, I think I’ll just sit here with my bad date and watered down coke and console myself with the fact that not being recognised is exactly what I was aiming for in the first place.

I know I don’t look like me. Or at least not the me everybody in this place thinks I am. If you asked the blonde over there to describe me, the one with the Cleopatra make up and Ryan Ross wanna be styling, I know exactly how he’d do it: Tight tee --Clandestine, of course. Even tighter jeans. A hoodie, black, advertising...fuck, I don’t know, something, and of course there’d be eyeliner. God fucking forbid there not be eyeliner and a flat iron.

So yeah, a guy with soft, tight curls, barely any cologne, let alone make up, wearing a red sweater over a white tee and jeans that actually require a belt for the purpose it was invented for? I probably wouldn’t look twice at me either, and I pretend I know myself as much as anybody else in this room.

Part of me can’t help wondering if things would be different if anybody was expecting to actually see me here. Then again, hold a gun to my head--I dare you!-- and even with that kind of incentive *I* still couldn’t tell you what the fuck I’m doing here. 

Because I shouldn’t be. I have priorities and messes and so much fucking more in L.A. that needs me.

I should be…somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Everywhere else. I’ve been told before today I resemble a persistent, obnoxious, toxic mold. 

That was Patrick’s favourite insult when he was running on too much coffee and nowhere near enough sleep to come up with anything more original.

Patrick.

Okay. It’s not hard to see how Patrick would think I was poisonous. Even if I always knew it kind of worked the other way. It was always Patrick that made me utterly powerless.

Or utterly something anyway. 

I’m beginning to think I should’ve ordered a beer, because the only thing the coke flavoured water is doing for me is adding to the nausea that has had me puking up everything I’d even thought about eating once already tonight. And it’s not like I can even that all puking on tonight. Or him. He’s part of it, sure, and tonight is some of it. But neither are most of it, not anymore.

C’mon people, let’s get this show on the road, so I can picture how it all ends. Show me the beginning of his dream and how much it looks like the destruction of mine.

Finally the house lights dim and I swear I can see the one that had been shining at the end of my tunnel go out.

Black and dark, hello my friend. Take a seat, don’t sit on my ego. Come watch with me, maybe finish my lukewarm drink, please?

“Ladies and gentleman,” Yes, this is that sort of club, despite the scene kids “The Lounge welcomes Patrick Stump and Band.”

I would have welcomed him personally, over and over. I absolutely would have.

If I knew who the stranger on that stage claiming ‘Trick’s name actually was.

I don’t…

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, motherfucking fuck!

For the next two hours I watch somebody in a suit and without a hat be who I always thought my Patrick was. Faith in my Patrick was something, sometimes the only thing, I could believe in. Unquestioningly. That faith doesn’t make the suited, hatless somebody any more familiar to me, though. I tried to listen, honest I did, but trying didn’t help. So I stubbornly sit, forcing myself to stay, and mantra that one word over and over. By the time bows have been taken I’m screaming it in the recess of brain so I don’t, can’t, focus on anything else.

Fuck.

Fuck me, fuck him, fuck everything.

It’s okay to leave now, all the songs have been sung. There’s no insult in leaving now. My exit happens in exactly the same manner as my arrival - unheralded and unnoticed.

I always knew I should have been the invisible one. I wonder if people will believe me now?

~*~

I had so many plans for today. Huge plans, great plans, there’s a list under the Yo Gabba Gabba magnet on my fridge and everything. 

Answering my front door and finding…him on my doorstep is not on the list. And no, I don’t have to check to be sure.

So I just stand there, my mouth open, and a thousand thoughts running, streaking in fact, leaving vapour trails in the grey of the world inside my head. And for all of that, and them, I have absolutely no fucking idea what to say.

There’s a voice in my head sounding suspiciously like Andy’s muttering ‘what the fuck do you know, there really is a first time for everything’. I hate that voice, but he’s right, there should be footage of a locust plague and some river in Egypt running red on the ten o’clock news.

“Hi.”

That’s a word, a greeting for friends. It’s not me that says it, though, and he smiles, waiting, when the greeting is out. I just look and eventually remember to close my mouth. I should try to return his grin. 

I’ve never been very good at shoulds. 

I’m currently failing at coulds too. Because I could make this easier for both of us, but I know now, I don’t have a clue who he is. I don’t recognise the unmarked, unlined, untouched flesh that hugs his frame. If I did, I’d know that his skin is cream and whether or not it taste as sweet. 

Nothing’s the same, nothing is mine. There’s blonde hair where there should be strawberry clichéd hats. There are dress pants with purple button down shirts and an artistically skewed white tie. 

Who the fucking hell are you?

Eventually, finally, I remember to choke out something.

“Hi.”

That makes his smile falter, ripple just a bit before it returns. It’s just missing the strength it had a second ago. I kind of want to stick my head out of the doorway a little further, and look upward to see if there’s any chance of rain. Maybe if we both stood in a downpour it’d flatten those soft, long, styled spikes of his hair against his skull and that would wash this amnesia from my eyes.

He’s my best friend…and I have no fucking idea who he is.

So how the fucking hell can he still know me? 

“Can I come in?”

Have he ever asked me that before? Like, seriously, ever?

“Sure.”

Hey, I didn’t make him wait for my one word answer that time, I’m getting better at a game I never wanted to play in the first place. Ain’t I the special one? Stepping to one side, I finally open the door enough to let him in while I shut my soul off completely. All in all I’m giving him more room to walk past me than I ever have before in my life.

There’s a hole in my world. It’s been there for a very long time, feels like it could’ve been there forever to me. It’s in exactly the same place where there used to be a space that was a perfect fit for the both of us. And it’s him that doesn’t fit anymore. It’s not so much a square peg in a round hole thing – it’s more trying to put a Porsche into the space forged by a dump truck.

“Are you going to shut the door?” he asks. “ Maybe offer me a coffee?”

His words bring me back from wherever I was, actually making me shake my head, just once, hard, with my eyes closed tight. When I open them I tell myself I can do polite. Contrary to popular belief, I can do polite.

“Sure.”

Apparently what I can’t do is answer him with more than one word at a time.

As I turn toward the kitchen, I get all of four steps before I’m looking back over my shoulder, checking to see if he’s following. I always trusted him to follow me into battle, into defeat, into hell. Into heaven.

I don’t now.

I don’t know who he is anymore.

But I know I didn’t misplace him, somehow I managed to actually lose him. And that means I’ve just lost most of myself as well. But that’s okay, because who he used to be is the only person that would have noticed, or would have bothered to look for me.

Who he is now is just wondering why I’m not making coffee already.

“Coffee.”

The pot’s still half full from this morning, I’ve been trying to cut back. For the most part I’ve been succeeding too (it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that more stimulants are the last thing I need), but it means that getting a couple of cups, together with the cream and sugar I have no idea if he even takes anymore, takes me about two minutes. But the silence that reigns over those few minutes makes them feel like hours.

Or days.

He doesn’t use the cream, or the sugar, I use too much of both, then we both sit, and I stare into the liquid that I seriously doubt either of us will end up drinking, waiting for the fucking world to end I guess.

Oh, wait, nevermind. I saw a show in Chicago that already played my own personal soundtrack for that.

C’mon, Pete, say *something*.

“Hi.”

Yeah, I know we’d already covered off greetings and salutations, but I’m fucked if I know where else to go. It’s all I can do to hold back the one question, the only question, that I want the answer to, because even I know it’s not something that even comes close to falling under that polite umbrella I’m trying for.

“Has it really been that long, Pete?”

Which ‘it’ do you mean, Patrick? I can think of a thousand its that have been longer than any time frame I have reference for. 

“I guess it has.”

Four whole words, in a sentence even. Fuck, yeah, I’m a total master wordsmith. 

“This never used to be so hard, Pete, not for us.”

It. This. Long. Hard. All words that should mean nothing and somehow they manage to wrap up my everything.

“Things change, Patrick. They’re always changing. Sometimes it’s obvious and sometimes you can’t even see the difference until you try to pretend everything is still the same. Like when you think the winter coat that’s four years old still fits. I’ve changed, you’ve changed, it stands to reason whatever we were together is a little different as well.”

I hope my coffee cup appreciated that whole speech, because I couldn’t make myself deliver it to Patrick’s face.

“Pete, for God’s fucking sake, look at me!”

Patrick, I couldn’t even look at you for my sake, let alone his. But for yours I can try.

Lifting my eyes is almost painful, and honestly, I do try for Patrick’s face, but the best I can do is about three inches above his right ear. Yes, I’m looking at the clock on my kitchen wall that stopped at 3.17…about a month ago.

Does Patrick realise…I guess he has to, but thankfully, it’s not what he choses to push.

“Why didn’t you let me know you and Ashlee were filing for divorce?”

Because I wasn’t?

Because after I’d sat down, next to the woman I honestly lied to myself about and though I’d be with forever, the same one who couldn’t bear to touch me, and tried like hell to explain it to my baby it took me a week to remember how to breathe without feeling like I was sucking my death into my lungs.

It was Andrew that told Mom and Dad. My assistant told him.

“I…couldn’t.”

“It wouldn’t have taken any more than one phone call consisting of one word.”

Which word would that be, Patrick? Help? Please? Come? Which one is the magic one?

“I just…couldn’t.”

I still fucking can’t, Patrick, why can’t you fucking see that? You’re meant to be able to see that! You’re meant to be able to see the me inside of this Pete Fucking Wentz suit!

“It’s okay. I’m here now.”

Cold comfort is a phrase I have an incredible understanding of now. 

Dropping my gaze back to the cold coffee, for a second I think about trying to smile, but the thought alone takes away any of the will I had to accomplish the follow through.

“You shouldn’t be. You have…everything going on. I’ll be fine…I’ve been fine. There’s nothing…you haven’t…you can’t…Fuck!”

All I want to do is send this fucking cup, stupid coffee and all, flying cross the room to see what pretty picture the shattering crockery would make against the wall. But I can’t. It’s part of a set Mom gave me. So quietly, with movements so measured my therapist would be proud, I get up and tip the milky, untouched liquid down the sink before rinsing the cup and putting it into the dishwasher that I won’t push start on for at least another three days.

One person doesn’t make a lot of mess. At least, not when it comes to housework and dirty dishes. Not even when that one person is me.

“Jesus Christ, Pete, you don’t have to-“

“And fucking neither do you, Patrick! Ask anybody, I’m the martyr, not you! Pete Wentz and all his fucking fuck ups, issues and mental breakdowns aren’t yours to fix! They never were!” 

“Who the fuck else is going to hold your leash, Pete? Look at what’s going on around you, what’s happening to you, do you honestly think you’ve got it under control? Really? Because I don’t want to answer the fucking phone next week and find you’ve pulled another-“

My voice isn’t loud enough to stop him. He’s screaming. I’m not.

But stop him it does.

“Get. Out.”

I’m whispering. I barely heard myself.

“Pete-“

“Leave. Go. Don’t come back. You don’t get to walk in here today and pretend like I know you. I don’t. You don’t get to pretend you know me either.”

“I know you!”

Finally, *finally* I can look Patrick Vaughan Stump in the eyes. And it’s okay, because there’s no recognition for there to be any pain.

“Not if you think I’d ever do that to Bronx you don’t.”

I’m standing so still, my bare feet pressing into the tile, my hands in my back pockets, elbows tucked into my side. So still. Nobody needs to see the quaking eruption I can feel sparking through my soul.

“I had a friend with the same name as you once, I used to call him ‘Trick or Rick, or Lunchbox or Patty or a hundred other things. He hated most of the names I came up with for him, or, you know, all of them, but I think he hated it most of all when I called him my everything. He used to tell me that he didn’t want that kind of pressure and really, he was right. My ‘Trick was a baby, and I should never have done that to him. I miss him though. If you ever find anybody with the same name as you, can you tell him that? Can you tell him that Pete misses him? I’d appreciate it…you know, if you could.”

“Pete-“

The sparking is getting closer to the surface now, my fingers are going numb. It actually hurts not to form fists with them. He has to leave. This explosion is going to happen, and it’s going to be fucking messy, but it will not happen in front of him. 

Not ever again.

“You were just leaving. Umm, thanks for coming, I’m sorry it was for nothing, but yeah, thanks.”

So polite.

Just one more time I don’t check to see if he’s following me, I just count each step to the door before opening it and waiting for him to walk through it. I’m anything but stupid, I’ve been waiting for him to leave since the day we met. 

He’s a half step from outside when he stops and turns towards me, opening his mouth but I can’t listen to anything else he has to say. Not today.

“Don’t. Please, if you ever loved me at all, even just a little, don’t.”

When he moves to take that final step the door is closed before his foot even reaches the ground.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

Except that it’s not.

And I don’t remember how to get off of the floor in my entryway. Let alone how I ended up here in the first place. 

~*~

~Andy’s POV~

To say my life isn’t what most people would list under the heading of routine falls to the far right of understatement. I’ve learnt to get up in the morning and know whatever my expectations for the day are something’s gonna happen to fuck them ten ways from sideways. Used to be that something was always pretty much Pete, but then we stopped being a band, and for a while, friends and during that time Pete…yeah, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what Pete was doing I just knew he wasn’t tipping my world on its ear any more. 

One day I’ll be able to tell him how much I missed that. You know, one day in a galaxy far, far away, because I’m not completely blind yet and nobody needs to see the patent Pete Wentz you love me dance more than half a dozen time in their life. He tends to do it naked.

But you know who never tilted anything until it was all I could do to hold on and not puke? Patrick.

Patrick was never the ingénue Pete wanted him to be, or at least not after that first vaguely tour like road trip from hell, and he sure as fuck wasn’t the peace bringing messiah of Fall Out Boy either. Seriously, Joe kept a notebook filled with ways Patrick must die and I saw how creative some of those ways got as the years went on. If Joe ever goes into the serial killer business, get very, very scared.

The one thing I thought I could count on when it came to Patrick though was him getting Pete and all his Peteness in a way that the rest of us just couldn’t comprehend. Sure they fought and hurled insults, along with food and breakables sometimes, with the best of them but Patrick’s lot in life was to ‘get’ Pete Wentz when the rest of us didn’t. 

It was one of those universal truths, like water is wet, the sky is blue and drums are the coolest instrument in a rock band ever. Right up until today. 

Because while I wasn’t expecting to be hearing from Patrick any time soon, it’s always good when I do. Or it used to be. Right now I’m just wondering if the sky is suddenly lime green.

“Andy, do you know what’s up with Pete?”

Pulling my cell away from my ear and rubbing my hand over gritty eyes until they sort of focus, I blink at the screen…yeah, it still says ‘Patrick’. Some much for the vague hope that caller ID would change its mind and I was suddenly talking to the Easter Bunny.

“Did you lose half of your brain along with everything else?”

I’m fully aware there wasn’t a drop of tact in that question, but fuck me, if Patrick’s going to be such a dumbass he forgoes any right he had not to get bitch slapped.

“What the hell are you talking about, Andy? I’m worried about Pete and you’re-“

“And I’m wondering when you got so fucking stupid. Think about what you just said, Patrick, ‘what’s up with Pete?’ You do mean other than the divorce and being separated from the love of his life, right?”

Apparently not, because Patrick goes quiet for a second…actually even a minute or three. C’mon, man, please engage your brain before you open your mouth this time.

“He really thought he’d be married to Ashlee forever?”

Fuck. Me.

“I meant Bronx you idiot.”

Well, I meant Bronx and Patrick, but I’ve given up any hope that Patrick will ever work out the second one. Even Pete’s given up any hope that Patrick will work that one out and Pete isn’t exactly known for letting shit go.

“So it’s just the divorce?”

“So it’s just the…” I can’t stop parroting his words in a tone of disbelief even I’m impressed with, but then I move on. I’m gonna go with anger and incredulity. “Seriously, Patrick? ‘Just’ the fucking divorce? When did you start smoking crack? You know Pete, and you know that good idea or fucking not, he went into this marriage praying to anything that would listen to him that it would last forever because he fucking worships Bronx, he does love Ashlee and from everything that’s gotten back to me he did anything and everything that he thought might stop Ashlee from filing. C’mon Patrick, you’re not this much of a dick, talk to me. Explain to me why the fuck you’re calling me to answer the world’s most stupid question.”

For all the years I’ve had an often unwanted front row seat at the Pete n’ Patrick Show of unrequited bullshit I’ve never been more confused. At least not by Patrick. Hell, compared to right now, Pete’s gotten down right easy to understand. It was simple when Ashlee got knocked up, we all knew Pete’s feelings for Patrick would never change but Pete could and would be happy with Ash and he would be besotted by his baby. I think Pete knew it was time for one part of his life to get a final curtain call before we all moved onto the loosely connected sequel. 

It doesn’t look like Patrick had the same understanding. It doesn’t look like Patrick had any kind of understanding and I have no idea how the fuck this happened.

“I went to see him last week, Andy…he told me to get out.”

Yeah, right, I’m gonna believe it went straight from point A to point what the fuck.

“That’s nice, now tell me the whole truth.”

“I told you, he told me to get the fuck out!”

“And I don’t fucking doubt that, just tell me what you did to deserve it.”

So I can work out who the fuck to get to check on him…hang on…

“You went to see Pete last week, he told you to fuck off and you’re only calling me now? You did call somebody else before me, subjected them to Patrick the Stupid, right? C’mon Patrick, please tell me you haven’t fucked Pete up enough for him to kick you out and left him rot in his own fear and nightmares for a week…Patrick! Tell me!”

“I was busy…I got sidetracked.”

All I can do is blink, hang up, then blink again.

Any second now my phone is going to start ringing again and there’s no way I can deal with Patrick again today. It’s time for a shower then coffee then ten thousand phone calls. Fall Out Boy may be on a hiatus that in all reality will only ever be broken by the occasional for one night only guest appearance thing, but there’s still an over-extended family out there and we’re still part of it.

When I pick up my cell after breakfast there aren’t any missed calls, and not a single text. 

Yeah, Patrick, we’re still your band. Sure we are. How about you let me know if we’re still your friends.

~*~

~Pete’s POV~

“Hi honey, I’m home!”

“That’s nice, dear.”

Anybody would think it’s been six hours since I last saw Gabe, not the months it’s probably been.

Anybody would think I was expecting him. 

Maybe I was, or I might have been seven days ago, or maybe five. Two days ago I realised I’m sick of my own expectations setting me up to be let down.

Hemmy and I both look up when Gabe fills the doorway, but neither of us move from the lounge chair we’ve barely left in…a while. I know Gabe’s angry, I can read it in the way his open hands are pressing into his thighs, but I can also see the clench to his shoulders as he tries to rein the fury in. When he speaks here’s a tone, not an accent exactly, but whatever it is, it’s there and it’s hard, grating. Pissed. 

“So, here’s the thing. I have this friend, he’s one of my best and he knows he can call on me for pretty much anything, up to and including a kidney. And this friend of mine is kind of prone to bouts of fucking crazy that he sometimes needs a small, very tiny, helping hand with.”

I should try to say something, right?

“Gabe-“

“Oh no, Wentz, it’s not your turn to speak, I have the magic talking temper tantrum stick, not you. Now, where was I? Oh yes, my crazy friend was apparently visited by his stupid friend and stupid friend probably said or did a whole heap of shit that falls under the descriptions of dumb, moronic, and idiotic and since my crazy friend adores stupid friend whatever was said or done had to hurt him. So my beloved crazy friend, want to explain to me why you didn’t call after Patrick came to visit? Do you need me to explain how much that fucking call from Andy scared the ever loving fuck out of me?”

“Not really.”

Those two words answer all of Gabe’s questions. I don’t need him to explain to me how much Andy’s call would have freaked him out. I’ve seen Gabe react to my special brand of nuts over the years, I’ve watched him shake and pretend not to notice the wetness he’s knocked from his face with his shirtsleeve. And I can’t explain why I didn’t call him when Patrick left…well, I can, but I won’t I’m a grown up who shouldn’t need anybody to hold his hand when the monsters under my bed growl louder than usual. Hemmy whimpers as he snuffles into my leg, reminding me he’ll protect me and I’m smiling at him even as my hand shakes when I reach out to stroke down his back.

But Gabe’s not done with me yet.

“Tough fucking shit, Wentz, because explaining is exactly what you will do. First things first though--when do you have bebe Bronx again?”

“How do you know he’s not here now?”

Why am I taunting him? Seriously, that’s like number one on the bad idea hit parade right now.

“It’s barely seven o’clock, you don’t look like you’ve slept or eaten in a we-while and the only toys I can see to trip over are Hemmy’s, I’m not stupid, Pete, so don’t, just fucking don’t. Just answer the fucking question without making it a war of wills, just this once, please?”

It’s not that Gabe doesn’t want to see my baby, his bebe, but what he really wants to know is how long we have before I have to be a functioning daddy type adult. This shouldn’t be Gabe’s job, reaching inside of my head and pulling me back right side out. He has a band, a girlfriend, a life, he shouldn’t be here at all.

“Gabe-“

“Just answer the damn question you fucking painful individual!”

There’s the frustration I always bring.

“Monday. I get to pick him up on Monday.”

It’s Thursday and there’s only eighty seven hours until I can hold him again.

“Good. Thank you. Now get your ass up, take Hemmy outside then feed him and put his ass to bed, he’s sleeping in the laundry room tonight. I’m going to go have a shower because I reek of United Air and I’ll meet in your room in twenty minutes.”

“Gabe-“

“Yeah, that’s still my name and whatever you’re so desperate to tell me can wait. Move your ass, Wentz, we’re on a schedule here.”

If you knew Gabe that would be enough to totally explain why fifteen minutes later I’m sitting on the end of my bed, staring at my feet as I wait for him. I don’t make a move to shift my unfocused gaze when he walks into my room, but there’s an effort to at least try to smile when I blink my vision clear again and I notice that Gabe’s stopped close enough that our toes just touch. Sometimes I can pretend that Gabe’s as much of a touch whore as I am. 

It’s not true though, because nobody’s as starved as I am for contact. I swear to fucking god, even at an orgy I’d just want *more*.

“Hey, look at me.”

This would be me still not moving. Or not being able to move, I’m not sure there’s a difference right now.

“Pete.”

Gabe doesn’t wait for me to ignore him again, he knows a waste of time when he sees one. He just takes hold of my chin and directs my eyes in the direction he wants.

“I’m not going to ask when the last time you slept was, so that’ll spare you having to attempt to lie to me while you hate for yourself for it. But I’m tired and you’re going to lay down and rest whether you like it or not. So lose the jeans and get in between those sheets, Wentz, now.”

As soon as Gabe lets go, my head drops again and I’m back to only two feet in my line of sight. They’re ugly and cold and…and I’m not following that thought through to the Pete Logic-al conclusion.

“Pete-“

“Yeah, I know, Saporta, bed. Just don’t go getting pissed at me when sleep is the last thing you get. Even Ash would sleep in the spare room when I was like…this.

My jeans are easily shucked to a puddle of denim on the floor, my t-shirt ends up, well, somewhere and I’m sure I’ll find it eventually and I still haven’t managed to look Gabe in the eye when I climb into bed beside him.

It’s the heat that draws me in, the warmth of living, breathing, human flesh radiating from the cold, never slept in sheets. I have to, I have to, I. *Have*. To. My hand finds Gabe’s stomach barely a second before my feet reach his calf. Fingers are trying to sink into skin even as toes are seeking any kind of leverage that’ll get me closer. To the warmth, to a human that might actually care, to feeling.

And just when I’m close enough, when that mythical place of contact is almost within my reach…Gabe catches up.

“Hey, fuck, Pete, no. Pete, I said fucking no.”

He’s bigger than me, more than me and it only takes one arm around my waist to pull me into his side. Keeping me there and keeping me from moving all at the same time. I’m not hard, I never was, so it’s not that kind of shame that has me hiding my face in Gabe’s chest. It’s rejection. Even Gabe doesn’t want me. The only person that’s a better slut than Gabe Saporta is me. Yeah, maybe that explains everything after all. He’s holding on though, as tightly as he can and after taking all of two breaths I just give up. And in. 

Apparently I can’t even do this anymore. Great.

Mumbling something that could be, and should be, ‘I’m sorry’ into Gabe’s skin, I shift my mouth enough that the next words are at least audible. 

“You can let go now.”

“Yeah, no, fuck that shit. You honestly thought I flew across the fucking country to fuck you, Wentz? And if not, just what the fuck were you thinking?”

Far too much for it to make any sense to anybody, me included.

Gabe’s arm tightens and he shakes us both just enough to jar my arm back onto his chest instead where it was laying along my side.

“Stop it, Pete. I know you’re inside your head like it’s your real world and you only visit the one the rest of us inhabit, but now is not the time for that. Now is the time for talking and words that other people are allowed to hear.”

“I thought you wanted to sleep.”

“I do, but then you decided I needed my bones jumped so we’re taking a little detour.”

Great.

Okay, I do this. Taking a breath as deep as Gabe’s hold will let me, I move my eyes from his chest and eventually I get to his face.

“Why are you here, Gabe? I mean, I’m a mess and everybody” (apart from Patrick) “knows it. I don’t have anything to spare right now, I don’t even have enough for me. I thought if I could just…touch you, hold on for a minute then there’d be something for you and I could…remember what it felt like.”

“We’ll get back to the whole why am I here thing, but what do you want to remember, Chiquito?”

I knew Gabe was never pissed at me, but his voice is swimming in gentle and I kind of wish I could drown myself in it.

“Feeling something other than pain. Or hurt. Or abandonment. Or fear. Or loneliness.”

“Pete, if we were to fuck, and just so you know we’re not going to, it wouldn’t take any of that away and you know it.”

Laying my head back down on his chest, I murmur “But at least I’d have some company while they tore me apart.”

Gabe doesn’t say ‘Oh Pete’ but I still hear it.

The hand not involved in holding me still reaches up to scratch at my scalp through the hair that hasn’t seen a flat iron in weeks so I figure it’s safe to leave my arm where it is laying across Gabe’s chest but I’m still too scared to hold on.

“They won’t rip into you, Pete, not on my watch. And you’re not alone, not unless you let yourself be. We don’t always know when you need us, Pete, because when you get tangled and twisted and knitted up into these fucking knots the one thing you always forget to do is ask for help…or not even help, because fuck knows I’m none, but if you let us, we can prove you’re not alone, Pete. You don’t ever have to fucking be by yourself, okay?”

If you say so.

“I’m tired, Gabriel.”

I know he gets what I mean by tired, but I wonder if he’ll ever understand why I sometimes ‘slip’ with his name.

“Then sleep, Chiquito, they’re be plenty of time to talk about everything else tomorrow.”

Is it wrong of me to wish there wasn’t? Yeah, I know, probably.

Neither of us speaks again (it’s not “later”) but Gabe doesn’t ease his hold, not for a breath, and I lay there trying like fuck to accept it.

~*~

A cup of coffee thumped against the table in front of me is the only warning I get

“So, it’s later, Petey boy, time to talk.”

As far as notice goes the bang of ceramic and wood sucks. I would have preferred something like a hand grenade I could have thrown myself on. Gabe’s not one for explosions though, he’s more the ‘slip you some poison that’ll make your hand turn black and drop off’ type.

“Umm, fine.”

Because really, it’s not like I have the right of denial.

“Love the enthusiasm level you’ve got going there, man, but I’ve worked with less. Before I start in on the questions designed to make you want to punch me in the mouth, is there anything you want to say?”

Taking a mouthful of the coffee while I think for about ten seconds and decide I’ve nothing left to lose by giving Gabe everything he wants. 

We won’t be dwelling on the whole nothing left thing, okay?

“I still love my wife, but my marriage is over, and I don’t want to get divorced. I miss my son, I hate that he’s not with me all the fucking time. Fuck hiatus, my band is history. My life feels more fucked than it ever did when I turned off my car in a Best Buy parking lot, and, oh, yeah, Patrick Stump is a complete and utter stranger to me. Where do you want to start?”

I think that’s everything. 

“You know it’s not that Ashlee doesn’t love you, right?”

Oh I know all right, she told me over and over and fucking over the night she kicked me out.

I don’t slam the coffee cup back down on to the table, but it’s a close thing and tepid liquid still goes everywhere.

“And do you know how much that fucking doesn’t matter, Gabe? What does it matter whether or not she still loves me or isn’t in love with me or wants to be my friend? It doesn’t, because now I have to tick the fucking divorced box on forms for the rest of my fucking life and half the time, B isn’t fucking here! He’s somewhere else, away from me and however the fuck Ashlee does or doesn’t love me means nothing if he wakes up crying, wanting Daddy and Daddy’s not. Fucking. There.”

“You know there’s nothing I can say to that, Pete.”

“Yeah, well, imagine how I fucking feel.”

Finger painting in the spilled coffee gives me something to look at that isn’t Gabe and makes me wonder if Bronx would like to do the whole shaving cream painting all over the kitchen table thing. I think he would. I think I would. When Gabe inhales though, I look up. I don’t know exactly he’s about to say next, but I know it’s going to hurt him to say it, and me to hear it and, yeah, I can at least let Gabe see that I know that. 

“That’s the thing, Pete, I can’t imagine anything like that. I can’t stop Ashlee from filing for divorce, I can’t make it all better, and I’m sorry, neither can you. I can’t put your little man back in your arms 24/7, fuck if I could, I’d sell my soul to make it happen but, you, me, we, no one can fix that, Pete. It’s broken and it’s staying that way. There is something we can do though, something I *want* to do, and that’s be your support when you don’t remember your name, let alone how to stand up. For fuck’s sake Pete, call me, call Andy, call fucking William, tell us how much it sucks and how much you hate it. Tell us it isn’t fair, because while it’s fact of life, you’re right, it isn’t fair. Not to you, or B, or even Ash. And when it gets really bad, when the walls are breathing in harder than you can stand and you either can’t get off of the floor, or don’t want to, all you’ll ever have to say is ‘come’ and we’ll be here. One of us will always come, Pete. We love you, and despite whatever you’ve convinced yourself of, there is nothing on this planet that would be better off without you.”

I can do this. I can say this. Really, I can.

“It’s just…it’s hard. Harder than anything I’ve ever done, walking away from the house that I used to call ‘ours’ and leaving B there, Gabe. The second I walk out that door I’m counting down the hours until I can touch him again, and when the hours are too long, I tick off minutes. I don’t hate my life, I’ve never hated my life, not really, I just…I need a reason, Gabe, and Bronx is…he’s almost all of my reason.”

Almost.

“You…you can’t do that, Pete. You can’t put that kind of pressure on Bronx even if he doesn’t know it’s there just yet. Whether you want to or not, you have to keep on moving, keep on living because if you don’t have a whole life, then you can’t give the bebe one either. You can’t just sit in the dark when you don’t have him, Chiquito, even if you feel like that’s where you belong. Take tonight for instance, tonight we’re going to pretty ourselves up and show that club of yours what it’s been missing. Tomorrow we’ll hit the gym then the stores before we come back here and watch any movie you’ve want out of the ‘I’ve seen this a thousand times’ list of favourites. I’ve got nowhere I need to be for a week or so, but more to the point there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

That’s Gabe for you. Even if he was meant to be somewhere else, this is where he is now and that’s enough for him.

I kind of want to be Gabe Saporta when I grow up, but we all know what little chance there is of that ever happening.

“Sounds good, man, Bronx’ll be happy to see you.”

“I know.”

Yeah, he does.

We didn’t actually solve anything, and I don’t feel any better than I did twenty minutes ago, but yeah, there’s little point going round and round circles with this topic, because Gabe’s right, it can’t be fixed. Not how me and superglue want it done anyway.

Finally getting up, I head to the sink to get a cloth to wipe up my abstract coffee art. Gabe waits until I’ve done exactly that and am staring out the window before he pounces again.

“Come and sit back down, Wentz, you’ve got another festering wound I need to be poking at before we’re done with out little tête-à-tête. Let’s discuss everything that is Patrick Stump.”

Seriously, let’s not. 

“My shopping list of issues had an item between my marriage, my baby and…him.”

“Yeah, the end of your band. You think I’m stupid enough to know that comment is totally wrapped in a nice Stump like body of fuck? It’s not my first ride at Park de Pete you know.”

I should learn to find friends dumber than I am. Or at least not this fucking smart.

Walking back to the kitchen table via the fridge to grab a bottle of water is a lousy delaying tactic, but it’s the only one I’ve got. It’s barely worth it for the five seconds of time it buys me because I really don’t want the water, just like I didn’t want the coffee and I don’t bother opening the bottle as I sit down.

It’ll make much less mess when I throw it if the lid is still tight. See, I can learn from experience, really I can.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know, Pete, whatever needs saying? Think of this as a practice run, saying it to me, so you’ll actually know what you want to say when I eventually make you talk to ‘Trick.”

I’d laugh at that, if I thought Gabe was joking.

“I went to Chicago you know, to see his show. And before you say it, I know you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t have gone alone, or should have told him I’d be there or something…you know me though, the internet and I have been going steady for way too long and I read shit I shouldn’t and I just wanted to see, to know.”

At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I can’t lie for shit unless I’m the one I’m lying too.

“Okay. Yeah, no, not okay, but, what happened?”

Shrugging as one hand rolls the condensing bottle to the other I try for a smile. I think I managed to curl my top lip. It’s such a pretty look on me.

“I saw a good, solid show by a complete stranger.”

For about ten seconds Gabe waits for me to say something else and when he realises I’m not going to he reaches over and snatches my water bottle away from me before taking both of my hands in his.

“Not good enough, Pete. Explain yourself because I know you don’t mean the obvious. The absolute last thing you’ve ever noticed about Patrick was his weight or his hair line.”

Patrick, my Patrick, was perfect inside, who cared what the outside packaging looked like?

Apparently me.

My hands squeeze Gabe’s because I need to know he’s there. And I need him to not let go right now whether I end up deserving to be left alone or not.

“That is part of it though. Sort of. He doesn’t look like my ‘Trick. The ties, the suits, the sweaters, the hair, the lack of hats...it’s like he’s trying to be the exact opposite to the guy I knew. Did he really hate being in Fall Out Boy that much, Gabe?”

Did I make Patrick that unhappy? Was he going through the motions for me while he hated us both?

“Hey, hang on, Pete, fuck, no, back that truck up a mile or three. How do you get from Patrick had a make over and got healthy, because no matter how perfect he was to you, his health was fucked. How do you get from that to ‘did my best friend hate me?’”

Instantly I’ve let go of Gabe and I’m pushing myself away from the table. The chair falls on the floor and I start to pace, throwing my arms around myself because Gabe took away my water bottle.

“He just…he says…my…fuck!”

“Pete-“

“No, just…Gabe, man, you gotta let me fall over my fucking words here, because that’s the only way I can…I can’t fuck fuck fuck!”

The fallen seat is just there so of course it’s what gets kicked in frustration. I’ll probably pay for it later but I’ll care about it later as well.

With the chair further out of the way, there’s more room to pace. And flail. I kind of wish I could still yell as well, but, when the words finally stutter out, they hurt too much to give them that much emphasis.

“He sounds nothing like Fall Out Boy, and I didn’t expect him to. But I did kind of expect to recognise something other than the pot shots at me. Then…then I get to hear, read how he can’t imagine singing our songs when he’s forty. Does he…do they…those songs are me, how can he not know this by now? Or does he just not care because I have the same best by date? Only I know I don’t, I think I’ve already expired because the guy on that stage in Chicago, he was a front man. He was everything I always told Patrick he could be and everything Patrick never believed me about. He didn’t need…he didn’t…”

I can’t say it out loud, but it doesn’t matter because both of us know exactly where I was going. So instead I settle for walking into the nearest wall before turning around, leaning into it and slide down until one more time I’m on the floor. I’m beginning to know the floorboards in my house better than…better than I my once best friend.

Gabe being who he is doesn’t try and get me off the floor, he just sits down beside me and gently lifts my head into his lap. When he speaks, his tone is even and the volume boringly normal.

“Fuck, Petey, only you can take three, maybe four, random sentences and turn them into the end of your world. It’s one of the few talents of yours that I will never envy. I really don’t know if I should smack you or cuddle you or a multiple combination of both. Yes Patrick grew into everything you told him he could be, but you’re focusing on the wrong shit. Patrick grew into what he is now, front man, bad hair colour and questionable shoulder pads – thanks for the last one by the way – because of you, not in spite of you. If he’d have never butted in on Joe’s conversation, which is probably the only time that boy ever did anything like that with his manners, and consequently never met you, he’d be some random P. M. Stumph in the phone book. He’d be a music teacher who played in a band with the math teacher on the weekend, he’d be a drummer who never opened his mouth, or he’d be a session musician playing everybody else’s music other than his own.”

“You don’t know that.”

Patrick was never going to be average. The universe might hate the fuck out of me, but it couldn’t ever dislike Patrick that much. Nothing could.

“No, Pete, that’s the thing, I *do* know that. Without you actually finding Patrick’s ego and feeding it like fucking Seymour, Patrick might have been something, but it never would have anything like the Patrick Vaughan Stump he is now.”

“I want him back, Gabe.”

“I know, but here comes the part you’re not going to like, Chiquito. Patrick circa 2009? That version is never coming back, it’s obsolete, gone. Thing is though, there’s this whole other version now, and I think he’d be a pretty cool guy. Your current problem is that you don’t really know him, and to be honest, I don’t think he knows you anymore either. Guess what I’m going to tell you to do, c’mon, guess.”

Gabe Saporta is an asshole. Just in case anybody didn’t know that.

“Play ice hockey? Ouch!” The above-mentioned asshole just pulled my hair. “Yeah all right, I’ve got to talk to him, I get it.”

“Oh I highly doubt that, because what the two of you have to do first is have that raging, object throwing, fist hurling argument you always swore you were too good a friends to do, *then* you have to talk.”

Here comes the statement I really don’t like, or want to make. I have to though.

“I’m not sure I can. Or that I want to.”

Turning my head, I look up just in time to see Gabe smile with such sadness that all I want to do is apologise. I never want to make my friends feel as bad as I do, but it happens. All the fucking time.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t chance the fact you have to, Pete. If you and Patrick don’t air whatever is this out and find each other again soon, you never will. And never’s a very long time, Chiquito, mostly because it goes on and on and on.”

It’s my turn for the not quite right smile this time before shifting, sitting up and moving to straddle Gabe’s lap. For a minute I just hold on, Gabe’s arms wrap around me just as tight. This…this is what I need. Touch, comfort. And neither of us are letting go, even when Gabe starts to speak again. 

“So, got any problems I can actually solve and make go away?”

The statement isn’t meant to be flippant, it’s a tension breaker. Intermission has been called.

“You can decide what’s for dinner tonight if that’ll help.”

“You’re buying, Wentz.”

“Fair enough.”

Another ten minutes or so goes by before we let go of each other and five minutes more pass for we move to get up off of the floor. Gabe’s right, nothing’s been solved, but somehow I can breathe without having to keep count.

It’s more progress than I’ve made since Patrick left me here. Two years ago.

~*~

There are times I wonder when exactly it was that I became my Mom, the amount of time I spend sitting in my kitchen. It’s where I always found her when she was worrying in the middle of the night. Usually about me. I don’t know what I’m worrying about, exactly, I just know there’s so much crap flying around my head my brain should really look into employing LAX’s air traffic control. I could be, should be in bed, instead of drinking coffee I really don’t want, and fuck knows I don’t need, at all hours of the night and day wondering why so many people, my mom included, consider room is the heart of their home. As far as I’m concerned it’s just the one room that always needs cleaning.

The heart of my world is a little over three foot high and is currently being the physical centre of someone else’s home. Yeah, I don’t begrudge sharing B with Ashlee, much, but there is always, *always* something vitally important to my existence missing when he not here.

I miss my baby, sleep is just one more thing in this world that isn’t talking to me right now, and neither of those pieces of information are exactly new, so I sit contemplating the fact I really need to put last night’s dishes in the dishwasher.

Bronx went…back, to Ashlee, his other home, yesterday and I guess it’s not helping me find some kind of peace when Gabe’s leaving tomorrow as well. I guess that could totally explain why I’ve been sitting at my kitchen table since about four this morning, but I’m not sure it does, at least not completely. Gabe’s only here for another twenty-four hours and that means that time’s done run out. I know what has to come. I can hear his Royal Cobra-ness talking, getting louder and clearer as he gets closer. 

Before I’m ready for it, his phone is held out, inches from my face.

‘Take it’ is what Gabe mouths at me as he works on a glare that he perfected years ago. It’s wasted though, because I know there’s no getting out of this, not this time. I just wish my hand wasn’t shaking as I take the phone.

“Umm, Hello?”

“Pete?”

Yeah, there’s the voice I was expecting. I wouldn’t have minded being wrong though.

“Patrick. Hey.”

Turning around in my seat, I kick a leg out, hard, hoping to get Gabe in the shins just because I’m sure he expects some kind of retaliation. Instead, I connect with his thigh and I only get a slight wince. Then fucker steals my coffee, so it’s not like I can claim the minimal pain I inflicted as a win.

“Gabe’s in L.A. then?”

Patrick. Right. 

Isn’t it obvious I wouldn’t be in New York?

“Yeah. We, he came to, ummm, yeah, then stayed to visit with B when he was here.”

I’ll be damned if I’m going to tell Patrick why he arrived in the first place.

A hand connects with the back of my head and I don’t have to look at Gabe to know the glare has gotten worse. Yeah, yeah, talk to him. I know, Saporta, really, I do. 

“Okay. Cool.”

Patrick’s two words don’t so much break the silence as they do shatter my control. If awkward or nothing are my only choices with Patrick, then fuck this shit, I’m taking nothing. It’s all I ever seem to get left with anyway. So this is me just cutting out the slide into hell and heading straight for the destination.

“So, if we’ve got nothing else to say to each other, I’m just going to hand you back to Gabe and he can say good-bye and farewell and all that shit, then I’ll start a fight I can’t win and another one of friends will finally be done with me. So yeah, b-“

“How did this become us, Pete?”

Now he wants to fucking talk, great. Gabe, the enabling asshole, leaves the room before I can throw his phone at his head. More fool him, because now I’m just going to have time to look for bigger artillery.

“I don’t know, Patrick, I’ve never had any of the fucking answers so why would you be asking them for me now.”

Fuck, especially now.

“You always knew where we were going.”

“There hasn’t been any ‘we’ in fucking years, Patrick. These days I don’t even know where I’m gonna be an hour from now, so keeping tabs on you falls into the,” Don’t, Pete, just don’t. And yeah, I can’t. I still love this guy, I’m always going to. “I don’t have that kind of energy anymore, Patrick. Sorry.”

One day I’ll break my habit of apologising for everything, up to and including global warming, but it’s not going to be a day that’ll be marked off on my calendar any time soon.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

This conversation is making me want to sleep more than any hangover inducing medication ever has, and god knows I’ve tried them all. My forehead ends up pillowed on my arm and I’m probably mumbling into the table more than I am the phone but I’m beyond caring if I’m being understood. Or I’m caring beyond anything I can measure.

Maybe I am the self-centred human my world is always telling me I am. Then again, maybe I just want it to stop.

Oh, right, Patrick, phone, okay.

“Doing what?”

“You keep calling me Patrick.”

“It’s your name isn’t it? Fuck, man, I can’t win with you, can I? You spent years trying to get me to call you by ‘your fucking given name’ and when I finally do something just like you asked you’re asking me why I’m doing it? C’mon, I’m the one who doesn’t know the meaning of consistency, not you.”

“Oh.”

Great, now we’re back to the point in this conversation where Patrick seems to have nothing as well and I think we can officially call it all done with.

“So, as great as this hasn’t been, I’m going to go and-“

“Why can’t you ever hold a conversation like a normal person, Pete? One without the poor, poor me bullshit and the sarcasm and self-deprecating shit that you should be fucking over by now. Shit happens, so not a fucking newsflash, but, guess what, it happens to people that aren’t you as well. Whatever you dropped, pick it up and keep fucking moving. And just once in your life, talk to another adult like you can relate to them without the aid of English to Wentz dictionary. Nobody can read your mind, Pete and sometimes you have to fucking use words, real words, in a sentence that makes sense to the rest of the planet.”

My poor abused chair falls back against the tiles, again, as I violently push myself upright and…and before I lose it completely, I’m mouthing ‘Hemmy, up’ as I point towards the stairs. My dog disappears towards my bedroom and then I’m not even going to try to keep my voice level anymore.

“Is there anything else I should be aware of, Patrick? You know, any other annoying Pete qualities that the great one wants to make sure I know about? Because the whole one about using words? Really? Are you fucking stupid enough to think I haven’t been told that by every fucking therapist I’ve ever had? I try, okay, I fucking try!”

“Try harder!”

“I don’t fucking know how to try harder when I’ve always been told I try too fucking hard as it is!”

It’d be a good idea if I got out of the kitchen right about now. There’s too much to throw and it would be too easy to start. It’s time to go find Gabe, because maybe if he hears all of this he’ll understand in a way I obviously haven’t been able to tell him. 

After that, if I’m lucky, maybe he’ll explain it to me.

“There’s the Pete Wentz I hate and despise, the one that listens to everybody else, thinks it’s all about him and has a million excuses as to why he should just give up.” 

I can’t breathe out. Sure, the air comes in, but then it just gets trapped behind the words jammed in my throat. As I try to remember how to exhale I’m moving room to room, finally find Gabe not quite hiding in the den. From the look on his face I know he’s heard everything I’ve said so far, but he needs to hear it all and a couple of pokes at his phone with a shaking finger gets Patrick on loud speaker.

I can do this. Then suffocate later.

“A-are you still there?”

“Where the fuck am I going to go, Pete, the world revolves around you, remember?”

Patrick used to be the one to pull me out of my head, not send me so far into it I’m not sure I’ll ever feel the sunlight again. But the angrier and more brutal Patrick gets, the more the fight in me just…leaves. Honestly, at this point in time, I have no idea what’s still holding me upright.

“I’ve spent what feels like m-my whole life trying to talk you, Patrick. You left me…confused and tongue-tied and in awe of everything you could do that I’d never be able to even attempt. But when I wrote stuff down, you-you didn’t always understand but you made it so I could and I…I thought you knew that. You made the voices in my head coherent and because of that, maybe I ended up thinking you could hear them as well. Then, when I tried to talk to you two years ago, that’s when I finally understood you never did. My voices were just that, mine, and you didn’t even want to listen to the one I was trying to actually speak out loud. Since then, Patrick, there have been a million and fucking one times I’ve wanted to talk to you, but it’s okay, they’ve all past us both by now.”

“Why?”

Patrick confuses me.

‘Why’ what? 

I confuse me.

“Fuck everything passing us by, why won’t you talk to me now? I’m here, I’m listening. Why didn’t you fucking call me all those ‘millions’ of time? Why the fuck couldn’t you make the first step for us once in your life, *Peter*?”

I hate him. That’s all I can think of, how much I hate Patrick Stump, and how much I hate myself feeling like that. My voice still low, But there’s a strain in now, and when it snaps, it’s going to kill me. Glancing up at Gabe, I know he knows that. So I hold his gaze with mine and start to speak.

“Listen very carefully, both of you, because I will never, ever say any of this again. You want to know why I didn’t call you, Patrick? I don’t know, maybe it’s because two fucking years ago you told me you needed a break – from me, not the band, me. Do you remember, Patrick, you said you needed to not be living a life stylised by me. Or how about this? Maybe it’s because you fucking told me you never, *never*, wanted to get on a fucking stage with me again in this lifetime! Strange how I didn’t listen either of those times though, isn’t it? Because I never do, right? I made sure I was this constant hum in your life, because hey, I’m Pete Wentz and annoying is what I fucking do. Right up until you had your fucking girlfriend tell me to fuck off, Patrick! She reminded me that you had all the talent and I was the nothing I always knew I was. So yeah, I finally stepped back as far as I could. It was never the universe in general that needed less Pete Wentz in it, it was the world of Patrick Stump! And I tried, I tried to not be me for you, but you didn’t fucking care, you just turned and walked away.”

“I’d been with you for almost ten years, Pete, I needed a fucking break. I needed to remember how to be normal.”

Phones are so much better than they used to be, Patrick sounds like he’s just around the corner, almost here. Which is strange, because he’s never been further away from me in the whole time I’ve known him. 

“Then imagine how I feel. I’ve been with me for thirty years, and maybe now you can understand why five minutes peace in a parking lot was actually worth it at the time. I’m about done, Patrick, but before I go…please don’t ever tell me I should man up and take the first step with us, Patrick, I’ve been chasing you for as long as I’ve known you. Some days I feel like I’ve made every fucking step, behind you, in front of you, first, second and third. And whether you realised it or not, in the beginning you counted on me never being able to let you go. Well, guess what, it turned out I wasn’t holding onto anything anybody gave a fuck about apart from me. So, as far as I’m concerned, just this once, no, Patrick, I’m not chasing you…I can’t.”

I’m tired, I’m crying and Gabe looks vaguely horrified. I just want to sleep. Forever. Or at least until next Thursday. 

“I was always your train wreck compulsion, Patrick, and strangely enough that’s not what I want anymore. I’d like a friend, but I wasn’t joking when I said I didn’t know you anymore and we both know how much I suck at making new friends. So do whatever the fuck you want, Patrick, whether you realise it or not, you always did. I was only there to make sure somebody noticed you while you were at it.”

The phone doesn’t get thrown, it just gets dropped at my feet.

My “I’m going to bed” is said to nobody in particular, and my feet drag while I stumble my way upstairs. Hemmy’s waiting for me when I climb onto my bed. He doesn’t mind when I hold him too tight and cry myself to sleep.

In fact he’s kind of used to it.

~*~

 

~Gabe’s POV~

It’d be fair to say the last twenty-four hours of my visit with Pete didn’t go the way I wanted it to. Actually that qualifies as a massive understatement, but semantics are Pete’s thing, not mine.

Speaking of Pete: I leave for the airport in an hour, I wonder if, this time, he’ll let me apologise? 

I mean, I’ve started to about twenty times since he woke up last night and he’s let me finish exactly none of those attempts.

It’s just…I just…Yeah, fuck. None of us are idiots, us being the musically borg collective our lives have evolve and tangled into, and we all knew the last Fall Out Boy tour would be the last one for a very, very long time. Pete and Patrick needed to not be PeteandPatrick. But we, I, thought without the band and the pressure of being ‘them’, they could remember what they are to each other and realise that if ever two people needed each other to the point of scary co-dependency that actually okay by the rest of us, it was Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump.

Yeah. No. Epic no even. Because nobody factored in the amount of stubborn Patrick can wield and the fucking endless streak of passive Pete has when it comes to that man. 

Some days, I don’t know who needed the kick up the ass more. Most of the time Patrick gets my vote, mostly because I’ve helped Pete through too much shit to lump even more on him.

Okay, the time has come, and knowing it’s the last thing Pete wants isn’t going to change that. We’re talking, and I’m going to say those magic words if I have to sit on him to do it.

Sadly, Pete’s surprisingly easy to find. When there’s no Bronx, he’s been sitting on the family room sofa staring out the window at nothing any time I’ve left him. Fuck, I have to go home, but god I wish I didn’t.

Or that I could take him back with me.

“Can I please say I’m sorry, and can you please let me believe that you know I actually mean it?”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Gabe.”

If Pete’s out and out lie wasn’t enough to send chills of cold and wrong down my spine, the total lack of emotion in his words and on his face takes me right past worried and a good two thirds on the way to freaking out.

“I’m the one that made you talk to Patrick. I’m the one that thought it would help, that it was what you needed. I’m the one that was wrong, therefore, I’m sorry.”

The shrug that gets me is as lifeless as the rest of the not quite Pete person sitting in front of me.

“And I still say it’s not your fault. You didn’t, couldn’t know that…that would happen. It’s all just a reaction to the wished for assumption that in any way that matters, nothing had changed. I should have been able to warn you that the truth was nothing was actually the same.”

Yeah, well, forgive me for thinking you could count on the one guy you always called your best friend, the one that said he would take a bullet for you. And it’s a very good thing none of that was said out loud. I’ve done enough damage and even now, Pete would defend Patrick against me. Against anyone really.

Moving across the room, I sit down beside Pete, close enough that our knees are touching and I’m blocking his nothingness view before reaching out to grab both of his hands.

They’re soft. I hadn’t realised that before. The calluses are gone. 

Oh fuck.

“Chiquito, remember what we talked about? You can’t sit here in a haze of hibernation when our bebe’s not here. You can’t push the pause button on the outside world. Nobody expects you to be jumping off of scaffolding, and I’d actually prefer it if you never did that again thank you very much, but I am going to expect to hear you went out for coffee, or dinner, or you took somebody other than Bronx to the movies. You have friends, people that love you, you don’t have to spill your guts to all of them, or even any of them, but it’s okay to let them help. It’s okay to lean, Pete, it doesn’t mean you’re weak. You know you’d be the first in line to offer a shoulder if I needed it, or Mikey, Joe, Brendon, fuck, I could list people for hours. You’d carry them if you had to and you wouldn’t think a drop less of them for a second. Let them prove they think exactly the same way about you. Not everybody in your life is a Patrick or Ashlee, Pete, some of them can give your Gabriel a run for his money.”

Yeah, baby, I know what my whole name means to you.

His smile is a little watered down and sort of just glances through his eyes, but it’s there and it’s real and all about taking my wins where I find them.

“Are you going to get pissy when I call you at three in the morning because I can’t sleep?”

I swear, Wentz, one day you’ll get the hang of this.

“No, jackoff, I’m going to get pissed if you don’t call me at three in the morning if you can’t sleep.”

“Have I told you I don’t know what I’m doing anymore? Have I mentioned that? I don’t know what I’m doing, or who I am, and I’m confused and scared and…mostly scared. I feel like I should tell you that, should I?”

Yeah, you should, I think, but maybe some time when we don’t have to get ready to drop me at the airport so I can leave would’ve been a better idea. But you told me and now’s not the time to split hair. Instead my fingers gently squeeze Pete’s and I give him the only answer I can think of.

“You don’t have know what you’re doing all the time, Pete, not right now. Beyond looking after Bronx, and remembering to feed yourself when he’s not around, all I’m going to ask is that you throw in some of those coffee dates with yourself I mentioned and you keep all your therapists appointments. Everything else can wait. Confused and scared are normal, healthy even, just as long as you let somebody know when they get too much for your head to contain. But when it comes to who you are, oh man, Pete, that’s easy. You’re Pete. Brother, son, friend, best friend, fucking champion to more people that you’ll ever know. And most important of all, you’re Daddy. All of that, that’s you, and even if you forget, I promise there’ll be plenty of people around to remind you.”

Closing his eyes again, Pete shifts enough that he can rest his head on my shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“If I’ve got nothing to apologise for, then you’ve got nothing to thank me for. We’re friends, I love you, that’s how it goes, Wentz.”

“Okay.”

Exactly.

“Right now though, do you want me to call a cab to take me to the airport?”

The head on my shoulder shakes ‘no’.

“I’ll drive you. I’ve got to go and get myself a coffee, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. C’mon, Wentz, let’s roll.”

He smiles as he stands and dodges my hand that’s intent on ruffling his hair. It’s not okay, not by a long shot, but I think we took a step toward the target rather than three steps away from it, and that’s always a bonus.

Pete does drop me off, with a kiss from him and a promise from me to call him when I land. What I fail to mention is exactly where I’m going to land.

The boarding gate says Chicago, not New York and there’s plenty of time for me to call Mrs Wentz, and Bilvy and let them know I’m coming. And that maybe they shouldn’t mention that to Pete until after I’ve gone.

Patrick though, he’s getting no warning. And no mercy. 

~*~

The door opens. Patrick blinks. I don’t.

“Gabe.”

Patrick’s a lot of things, but surprised at the fact I’m here seems to be none of them.

“Yeah Gabe. Give me one good reason not to break your nose, Stump.”

Given how big I am compared to Patrick, I’d probably break his whole face, but I’m feeling a certain kind of peace with that outcome right about now.

This time Patrick doesn’t even blink, he just stands there and waits.

“You’ve got nothing?” 

Because yes, I have to check. There’s a lot of unexpectedness going around these days.

“I’ve got nothing.”

Those three words save Patrick’s nose and get my fist buried in his gut. He maybe smaller, but he’s not really any firmer and the way he doubles over tells me he won’t be taking any deep breaths for a day or two. Two seconds after I pull my hand back, he’s puking into his rose bush and I guess if he was planning on recording this week it sucks to be him. 

I know where to find Patrick’s kitchen so it’s easy enough to leave him there while he liquid fertilises the garden and grab a couple of bottles of water. By the time I get back, Patrick’s inside, the door is shut and he’s leaning against it, knees bent with his forearms resting on his thighs. He tries to smile when I hand him the drink, but we both know it’s an attempt destined to failure.

Half the water is gone before I think he’s ready to speak. Not that it matters, I’ll move into his spare room, or Bill’s, if I have to. Come hell or high water, Patrick is starting this conversation.

“I deserved that.”

That’s a start I can work with.

“You deserved to have your nose spread across your face, but I took pity on you.”

“Forgive me for not looking at it quite that way at the moment.”

“At this very moment, forgiveness is the last thing I’m going to give you, so I don’t give a fuck which way you see anything much at all.”

“Fair enough.”

The rest of the water disappears and Patrick coughs out his last swallow. He winces when he stands upright but I’m still not feeling any pain.

“Can we do this siting down?”

The only answer he gets is my hand waving in front of me in a ‘lead the way’ motion. I’ve made this as easy as I’m going to by turning up and not leaving visible bruises. Now it’s time for Patrick to do the hard work.

All of it.

Does he realise how much this fucking hurts? That this is what Patrick and Pete’s relationship comes down to. Me and Patrick, not even fucking Pete, sitting on opposite sides of a coffee table trying to out stubborn each other. Well, at least I think that’s what Patrick is doing, and seriously, bitch, please, I’m an Uruguayan born immigrant. This Chicago born talented pretty boy has no idea what stubborn actually is.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Patrick well enough, love him like a friend even, but I won’t give in to him like Pete does. Nobody on this fucking planet has the blind spot Pete does when it comes to Patrick. But then again, nobody is exactly who will ever love him like Pete does and it’s about time he realised that. 

“You’re just going to sit there until I say something, aren’t you?”

Shrugging, I nod, then fish in my pocket for my phone.

“Yeah, pretty much, though let me know if we going to be here past dinner time because I’ll have to call Mrs Wentz and cancel.”

When I glance up from the text I’m sending Bill, Patrick’s opening and closing his mouth like he’s afraid his jaw will forget how to work. A raised eyebrow gets his mouth staying closed on the next movement and whatever, I just go back to Bill.

Half a dozen messages have gone back and forth before Patrick gets around to actually saying something.

“Is he okay?”

“Oh my god, you’re that worried about him it took you ten minutes to ask? Fuck, the stress of it must keep you up at night.”

Bill calls Patrick a fuckwit in the next text and all I can do in return is agree. Well, that and wonder if playing Dear Abby for these two will get me qualified as a marriage counsellor on the internet. Just think of the fun I could have with Frank and Gerard.

“You’re not helping, Gabe.”

“I’m not fucking here to help, Patrick.”

Or at least not to help you and at the rate this is progressing I doubt me being here will be any help to Pete either.

According to Bilvy I baby Pete. It’s another statement I agree with but I can’t help adding that somebody has to, because god knows Pete will never cut himself a break. However he will carve pieces of himself off to feed the wild dogs if it means that Patrick will get away scot free.

“Gabe, really, is he okay?”

“No.”

C’mon, asshole, that’s something you really shouldn’t need to be told.

“Then why aren’t you still with him?”

My eyes close, my shoulders hunch and I bite down hard on my lower lip. For a second I use the pain to remind myself where I am, then I ask Bill to call Mrs Wentz. If he could tell her something came up and I’ll be there tomorrow night that would be great. What follows that is me asking him if he could have enough booze at his place to put me well on the way to alcohol poisoning at some point tonight, that would be even fucking better. I don’t tell Bill I’m about to kill Patrick, he’d just try and stop me.

He’s always telling me I’m too pretty for jail when really it’s just that he’s too lazy to visit.

Purposely I put my phone down beside the rentals keys and then, finally, with as much of control I can muster right now, I just stare at Patrick.

When his twitches become constant, that’s when I begin to talk.

“Do you have a brain injury you neglected to tell the rest of us about?”

“What the fuck does that even mean, Gabe?”

“Well, you keep asking me the stupidest fucking questions ever so I was just starting to wonder.”

“I’m asking questions I want an answer to.”

“No you’re fucking not, you’re asking questions you already know the fucking answer to. Is Pete okay? His marriage just imploded, his son is not with him half of every week and you’re being a fucking moron but I guess apart from that, sure he’s fine. As to why I’m not still with him, well, funnily enough, my fucking boss knows what my schedule looks like. This isn’t about me though, and what I’m doing or not doing with and for Pete. This is all about you and I want to see you if you can explain yesterday’s little clusterfuck to me. I really fucking thought I was doing the right thing in trying to get him to talk to you, Patrick, but what I didn’t realise is apparently you don’t actually give a fuck.”

Flinging himself back in the chair, Patrick waves a hand in the air like it actually means something before he runs the same fingers through his stupid fucking hair. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gabe.”

“Then we’re even because you’re talking out of your ass.”

“You know what, you don’t get to do this. Maybe I fucking deserved the gut shot, but this is my home and you have one side of the story. I’ve been cleaning up after Pete since I was fifteen fucking years old, and I’m sick of it, I’m tired of it. What’s so fucking bad about wanting him to lay in the bed he made for just one moment in time without somebody calling housekeeping? You know as well as I fucking do that he loves the wallowing second only to the drama.”

And now, fucking *now*, I finally understand exactly what Pete meant when he said he didn’t know Patrick anymore. It’s a feeling that’s making me sick to my stomach so how Pete wasn’t whimpering in the corner I’ll never know.

Then again, maybe in his head, that’s exactly where he was.

I need to be leaving here sooner rather than later, so the sooner I say the shit on my mind the better and the more chance I have of getting out here without doing something I can be arrested for. But when I open my mouth what comes out surprises even me.

“So you did mean the lyrics in ‘Spotlight’ as a slur towards Pete then?”

“I’m sorry, but what?”

He has the gall to look confused.

“You know, depression is like happy hour, and nostalgia isn’t something you need anymore. I mean it’s obvious that living with Pete taught you nothing about mental illness and if you just answer that one question I’ll go. I mean it’s not like I’m accomplishing anything here and, well, yeah, so answer please.” 

As he leans back, Patrick closes his eyes and sighs. A nanosecond after that I realise I really don’t want him to fucking answer that question, not if I ever want to call Patrick Stump a friend again.

“Actually I changed my mind, don’t tell me the fucking answer. Ever. Maybe answer it if Pete ever asks you, but I don’t want to call Bill to bail me out of jail tonight so no, I’m good.”

In a movement with more grace than I should have right now, I manage to stand, picking up my phone and car keys all in one go. Stuffing the phone in my pocket and closing my fist around the keys, I look at Patrick and give into everything I want to say. I don’t care if Patrick makes sense of it all, but if its out…

Yeah, I’ve got no fucking idea.

“I don’t know when you started to believe Pete’s press, Patrick. If there was one person on this planet he used to depend on to know the truth, it was you. Not me, not Mikey, not even Joe or Andy, you. Pete told himself as long as you knew the truth he’d be okay, he’d make it through whatever tunnel he was trying to dig in his mountain of shit. He loved you, he…fucking worshipped you and the only other relationship I’ve ever seen anything even close to that is The Brothers Way. But where as Mikey and Gee would quite literally skin themselves alive to protect each other…you think the way Pete loves is broken. That’s he’s broken. I can’t fucking believe I'm about to say this, to you of all people, but he’s bipolar, Patrick, that’s all. In my heart I know you know it’s not his fault, that’s it just the luck of the brain chemistry draw, but what I can’t figure out is why all of a sudden you’re making him feel like it is. Sure he takes a running jump off the deep end sometimes, but fuck, man, we all do in some way from time to time. He doesn’t wallow, he doesn’t love it. It’s just that shit happens that his brain can’t process properly, Patrick, you fucking know all of this! Life happens, his meds need tweaking, his fucking wife walks out with his son and he needs his friends to hold him for a minute. Frank is the most boringly normal sane man alive and how the fuck do you think he’d react if Jamia walked out and took the twins with her? We’d be scraping pieces of Frank off the fucking ceiling and you know it. So cut Pete a fucking break just because he needs to be fucking held together when his life blew up in his face! He didn’t want you to clean up after him, Patrick, Pete knows there’s no fixing this mess, but he wanted you to be there. To come, no questions asked, just because he needed you…just like you would have five years ago.”

I wonder if I look as dumbfounded as Patrick? I wonder if Bill’s going to have enough booze.

“We all know Fall Out Boy are over with, Patrick, Pete more than anybody, but you two, you were more than that band and that’s…fuck, Patrick, I’d kill to have that. And if it means anything to you, then stop keeping fucking count about who cleaned up what mess, or who did what first, it’s not fucking important. There’s no scale that needs to be even, like everything else in this world, it goes up, it goes down and when you find the one person in your life that you trust enough to be your counterbalance…you’re luckier than I’ve been to date. I spent the first few hours I was in L.A. holding Pete as he cried over Bronx, he wouldn’t let me spend the last few hours doing exactly the same thing when the reason was you though. Pete talks a great game, but he doesn’t understand any of it, Patrick. I came here today, and all I wanted to do was hurt you, badly. I can still do that, but if you’re willing to kiss what the two of you have away then you’ll hurt soon enough. And it’ll be deeper than any bruises I can inflict. So that’s all I’ve got. Be Pete’s Patrick, or stay gone and let those of us that do love him hold him up for a while. I’ll see you, Patrick, but hopefully it won’t be any time soon.”

My smile is as sad as my heart when I leave. Quietly shutting the front door behind me, hoping like fuck deep down Patrick is still ‘Trick. But then again, making things better is the only option I’m willing to entertain, because I don’t even want to contemplate how this mess could be made worse.

Starting the car, I turn down the radio, then wriggle and bend until I get my phone out. William answers on the second ring.

“Gabe?”

“Shots, lots of shots, lined up and waiting for me, mi bello, please?”

“Get your ass over here, baby, I know what you need.”

Yeah he does.

And when it comes to Pete, all I can do is pray that Patrick remembers that he has the exact same knowledge.

~*~

~Pete’s POV~

Opening my front door and finding Patrick standing there is about as unpleasant as it was a month ago and probably even more surprising.

I wonder who sent him.

My money’s on Joe or Andy, Gabe’s been happily silent on the whole Patrick subject and everybody else seems to know not to even try.

“Can we not do this and say we did? I won’t tell anybody the truth, honest.”

“Huh?”

Great.

“Whatever it is that you’ve been sent here to do, or say, I promise to tell whoever you tried and we’ll call it even. How’s that sound to you?”

It takes Patrick’s brain a minute or so to catch up with my rambling but I know instantly when it does. I don’t need, or want, a verbal confirmation, but it comes anyway.

“No.”

Okay then, I’ll take another track.

“And if I tell you I don’t want you here? That you’re not welcome?”

“I’m not leaving, Pete.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

“Then I guess you’d better come in. You know where the kitchen is, I’m just going to put Hemmy in the backyard.”

Yelling freaks him almost as much as it does me, and I’m nowhere near stupid enough to not know there’s going to be all kinds of loud voices. It seems to be the only thing Patrick and I are good at anymore. 

By the time I get back to the kitchen, Patrick’s sitting at the breakfast bar, a drink of water in front of him. There’s still half a glass of juice sitting there from my breakfast. Okay, the juice was my breakfast, but I’m working on getting the whole thing down, I promise. 

C’mon Pete, sit, try. I succeed in the sitting thing at least, taking the stool on the opposite side of the bench to Patrick. My juice is getting warm when I clasp the glass.

“Whose turn is it to start the recriminations and fight this time?”

Not exactly what I meant to open my mouth and say, but true none the less. My bitterness is one more thing I’ve got to try and accept, but it’s work in progress. I expect it to take roughly the same length of time as the average ice age, and you know, be a little colder.

“I get that this isn’t how you want this to go, Pete, because believe it or not, it’s not what I had in mind either, but can you…can you remember that we were friends once, please?”

All I can do is snort and push my juice from one hand to the other.

“Patrick, that’s the one thing I’ll never be able to forget, and believe me when I tell you that it doesn’t help anything.”

It’s a reminder of just one more good, amazing thing I was once a part of and is now an open wound I have no idea how to heal. 

“Can we pretend it does so we can at least try and talk to each other without leaving dismembered limbs in our wake?”

“Sure.”

How the fuck can this hurt anymore than it already does?

Small talk is something I’ve never been any good at, unless I’m standing in front of thousands, or talking to a million faces I’ll never see and since the only thing I can think of to say is ‘how about this weather’ I’m going to have to let Patrick start this. We both wait two minutes, then as the third ticks over he speaks.

“How are you?” 

Fuck me, I could have come up with that one.

“Okay.”

My answer gets me a roll of Patrick’s eyes and snarled word or two under his breath that I don’t quite understand.

“I’m not your fucking accountant, Pete, I’m not asking you to fill the silence, I’m asking because I want to know. So let’s try this again, how are you?”

I can’t make myself give Patrick the same answer I’d give Gabe, but I guess I can try to aim for somewhere middle like.

“Okay is pretty much how I am. I had Bronx until last night, so it’ll be another few days before I’m at the point where I’m counting the hours until he’s here again. I have an appointment to get my haircut and see my therapist this afternoon. I’m okay, Patrick. Sometimes that’s all I am and I have to be happy with it. And if you want an honest answer, then you have to be okay with it too.”

The juice is too warm to drink, but three mouthfuls gets it gone anyway. Patrick toys with his water before surprising the shit out me with his next question.

“How’s Bronx?”

Gabe’s the only person that isn’t a blood relative that asks about my baby. Everybody else on the ‘ look after Pete’ roster will ask what we did, but none of them want to facilitate a freak out, so some things they just…skip.

“He’s, yeah, I don’t know. He’s two. I don’t know how much he understands beyond he gets Mommy or Daddy now days, but Mommy and Daddy just aren’t an option anymore.”

He’s two. Ashlee and I both tell him he’s loved about a million times a day. What else is there we can do? 

“I hate this, Pete.”

“What is it you want me to say to that, Patrick? I’m not exactly fond of it either, but the lesson I’m being continually beaten over the head with lately is that I cannot control much of anything, so what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

I don’t want to be mad at Patrick, I mean, fuck, I don’t want to be angry at anything, or in my case everything, anymore but there’s just something about this Patrick anymore that makes any other reaction almost impossible to have. I’m too old and way too fucking tired to play twenty questions with this man. If Patrick wants to know something, he’s going to have to flat out fucking say it.

The words come out with a taste of bitterness that I really didn’t mean to put in there, but like everything else I instantly regret, I’ll never be able to take it back.

“C’mon, Patrick, I mean it, what is it you want to hear, Patrick? Give me a hint and I’ll help you out. I can give you whatever you need, even it’s what’ll make it all okay in your head to walk away once and for all. Didn’t look like it was all that hard for you to do last time, so let me make it even easier for our one last dance.”

“I just want the truth, Pete.”

That’s the one thing nobody’s ever after.

“Are you’re sure you’re not after the gossip? I’m sure it’d make much better copy.”

The look I think Patrick is going for is a righteous glare, but what he accomplishes is more mild constipation and all I can do in return is shrug.

If that’s what he wants.

“Okay, the truth. Of course, you’ll have to talk to Ashlee for her truth, and I have no fucking idea what yours might even come close to being, so here you, here’s Pete’s. Ashlee left for the same reason you left, for the one reason that everybody leaves.”

This time, Patrick nails the annoyance thing he was trying for, running his fingers roughly through his hair and looking like he wants to scream.

“For fuck’s sake, Pete, don’t fucking start this again. Everybody does not leave you.”

I’m not a big guy, but I can’t make myself so small that I can disappear from my kitchen all together, no matter how much I wish I could. All I want is to be invisible, and not because I want to go check out the girls’ locker rooms, either.

“Then name one person that’s stayed, Patrick. One person that I’ve really, honestly loved the way I know I can and shouldn’t that I haven’t become too much for, to caught up in. Name just one fucking human that has hasn’t decided I’m too erratic, too intense, too up, too down, too fucking much in every way possible! C’mon, Patrick, do it! Because I can tell you every fucking one of them that hasn’t. Ashlee. Mikey.” The breath I take in is deep and the shudder as it releases almost chokes me. “And then, of course, there’s you. My son is two fucking years old and I’m already living in fear he’ll be next So c’mon, Patrick, give me some hope I won’t lose my baby to myself, and tell me who hasn’t left me.”

It’s not hard to see that Patrick’s thinking, frantically turning the names of pretty much anybody I’ve ever met over in his head. Trying to pull out that magical one that prove me wrong, so he can wave it in my face and tell me one more time that I’m nothing more than a drama princess who can’t even step up to be queen. It doesn’t matter how much he tries though, he won’t do it.

Because he has no fucking idea.

“Gabe. Gabe’s still here, Pete.”

Nope, not a fucking clue.

And I wonder if he realised he just agreed with me about him being gone.

Quietly, carefully, I stand up, holding on to the bench until I’m steady on my feet.

“I love Gabe, Patrick, he’s my fucking brother, my Gabriel, but I’ve never been in love with him. You can see yourself out.”

My legs shake as I walk out, leaving Patrick in my kitchen. He says nothing to stop me from going and I’m done saying anything to make him stay. 

But how the fuck that one little sentence shocked him silent I’ll never know, because I thought everybody knew.

Patrick doesn’t leave the house for another fifteen minutes. Not that I was listening for him or anything.

~*~

~Patrick’s POV~

I don’t know why I keep turning up on Pete’s doorstep. In the last couple of months, I’ve gone from not caring if I ever see him again, to…just wanting to be here. Some days I’ve turned up here when I could have sworn I left my house with the intent of heading in completely the opposite direction.

But I always end up…here.

Once or twice, I’ve just stayed in my car as it idled one turn short of the driveway. I’ve watched the house, seen the black car parked in front, the tricycle and dog toys on the front doorstep and on those days, I even think about getting out of the vehicle. I don’t even turn the engine off. Instead I just put my car back in drive and leave like I was never there in the first place. 

You see, Pete never leaves toys laying around when Bronx isn’t there.

And when Bronx is there, I don’t stop. It’s not that I don’t love that little boy, I do, but his daddy needs him and he doesn’t need me throwing a shadow over their time together. Maybe, if I was invited…but I never am, so I don’t. 

I’m not sure if Pete knows about those trips. He doesn’t mention them and neither do I. In fact Pete doesn’t mention much of anything unless I ask about it. But even I do ask, the guy always used more words in an hour than I did in a week does a lot of nodding and throws out way too many ‘okay’s’ and ‘fine’s’. 

My opinion of ‘okay’ and ‘fine’ is that they are now officially the most useless words in the English language. There’s not a question invented that they’re a real answer for but they shut down a conversation quicker than audible fart.

So I push ahead and push my luck and keep asking every fucking question I can think of.

‘How are you?’ is always answered with a variation on the theme of doing as best I can. 

‘How’s Bronx?’ gets me a story about their last attempt to cook or drawn or build the Gold Gate Bridge out of Playdo.

‘What are you working on?’ is almost always answered with a list of projects at least half of which have been on the go for as long as I’ve known Pete.

‘Are you writing?’ gets the subject changed so fast my head spins. 

Sadly that’s the one of the two question I’d really like a proper answer to. Not because I want to put Fall Out Boy back together and take over the world or anything, I don’t, not yet, and I’m beginning to realise that Pete never may. But writing is kind of like breathing when it comes to Pete, essential for a life above a mere existence.

I wish he trusted me enough to tell me the truth.

I wish I had the fucking balls to ask him if he meant it, what he said two months ago. About never being in love with Gabe. And maybe being in love with me.

But that’s the one question I haven’t asked.

Yeah, anyway, I’m here, there are no toys so the engine gets turned off and I walk towards the front door. Only this time, it opens before I get there. Nobody’s waiting for me in entryway; in fact I can’t hear Pete at all.

“Pete?” 

Nothing.

Fuck, he must have only just opened the door, it’s not like he could have made it further than the kitchen or at best, the backyard. For some reason it’s option number two I head towards.

“Pete?”

Again, he doesn’t answer me, but he’s not hiding because I found him easy enough. Sitting quietly on his back deck waiting for me I guess.

There’s some kind of lunch set up on the table, most of it still in containers but there’s a couple of apples beside two cans of condensating diet coke. 

“I thought you might be around today.”

That’s good, because I think I’m meant to be at a meeting with my agent right about now. And it’s only when Pete speaks again that I realise I’ve just been standing there, focused on nothing.

“Patrick, sit.”

Pete flaps a hand at the chair opposite his, it’s always opposite, never next to, and yeah, I sit. And wait. But over the last couple of months I’ve discovered I’m not as good as I thought I was at the whole waiting thing which is why barely two minutes later I’m the one verbally poking at the awkward silence.

“Pete, are you okay?” 

Fuck, Patrick, how stupid are you. Dumb questions like that will get nothing but Pete’s standard non-answer, so before he can even open his mouth I’m barrelling forward with some crazy assed clarification. 

“Yeah, no, I mean, I know you’re not, okay that is, but I want to know what’s wrong, if I can help, I just want you to talk to me, like you used too and if you’re not going to give me that then please don’t…you know, just don’t.”

That made no sense. I can only hope Pete managed to translate it into something that resembles English. 

Christ, talk about the shoe being on the other foot.

I guess he does, because I watch as Pete works his mouth once, then twice before he shakes his head and then the words finally come.

“I know you want some super cool over explanation, Patrick, but I can’t give you what I don’t have. My therapist says I’m getting there, Gabe would prefer I went out a little more. I like the days I have Bronx better than the ones where I don’t, but I’m not shutting myself inside in the dark on those days anymore and even I can see that’s an improvement. And…and I like that now I get to see you a little more than never.”

This is where I step in with my own amazing reasoning for, yeah, I have no fucking idea what, but I even I realise I’m meant to be saying something. All I’m doing right now is letting the silence stretch and I know how this goes, I know it’ll snap like an overextended rubber band and take out an eye or something.

“You’re thinking too much, Patrick, and everybody knows that’s my job description, not yours. Just say whatever you want to, ask whatever you need to. I figure we’ve got about ten years worth the bullshit to dissect and there’s never going to be the perfect time to do it…so yeah, go for it.”

That makes sense. Pete making sense scares the fuck out of me.

“Please don’t think I’m disagreeing with you, I’m not, we need to talk instead of fight then ignore each other for months on end. But why today? Why now? Why aren’t we putting this off until we’re both missing chunks of flesh and vital limbs?”

Seriously, Jersey Shore’s got nothing on the two of us when we’ve both got our ugly bitches on. 

The food is spoiling in the sun, neither of us will drink the coke now, it’s too warm to be bothered with and this is not what I pictured as the setting for our redemption, but then again, I pictured us being about twenty years older too. I never thought we’d get to this point, let alone help each other past it.

“I just…it needs to be now, don’t you think, Patrick? Does it really matter why?”

No. It doesn’t.

These chairs are comfortable, but that doesn’t make relaxing easy. Some how though, I squirm enough until I’m not sitting like I’m either about to bolt or have a pole up my ass and here goes nothing.

Or everything. 

“I don’t want to rip apart the last ten years, Pete. They are what they are. We lived them, we fucked them up and they fucked us over. But we also had the most fucking amazing things happen to us that could ever happen to anybody. The good, the bad, the Andy’s ass ugly, there’s nothing between us now that can be helped by talking about a fight we had between Detroit and Syracuse over who spilt lube over my favourite hat.”

“It was Joe.”

There’s almost a smile on Pete’s face when he says that.

“No, it was Andy and we both know it. Fuck, Pete, how we remember those times depends on what kind of day we’re having right now so I just want to leave them be. We’ll hate them when we hate them but most of the time they’re what we’ll tell our grandchildren about when we’re grumpy, old assholes.”

“I already am.”

“You’ve got time to get worse, Bronx is a long way off reproducing.”

“Thank fuck.”

“Amen to that.”

And that sounds was almost a laugh. But best of all, Pete’s shoulders shift down from his ears and he tucks his feet under himself in the chair. Whatever occurs to him though, takes away that split second of ease.

“What’s left then, Patrick? If we don’t rehash every fight we’ve ever had, what do we do?”

The only way to say this is to…say it.

“I want to talk about what you told me a couple of weeks ago. About-“

Pete doesn’t give me the chance to finish, he just cuts straight through whatever I was about to say. 

“I know what about.”

Okay. Good. I think.

If he knows what about, I just have to wait until he starts talking right? Because there’s no way in fucking hell I can bring myself to actually ask if he loves me.

Yeah. I’m going to wait.

When it’s really important, or Pete thinks it is, did you know you can actually watch him sort through his thoughts like he’s mentally sorting index cards? Because you can. He’s doing it right now.

“I know everybody jokes about the amount of times I’ve fallen in and out of love, you know, it’s a day that ends in ‘Y’ Pete’s in love again. And that’s exactly what I was like. Shiny and new is my downfall, every fucking time. Still is to some extent. The difference now is that while I might call it love, because love is such a cool word, I know it’s not. It’s obsession. I get obsessed with things…and with people. When it’s a person, though, that obsession…it’s stronger, it builds on itself because I don’t want to know the feelings just from my point of view, I want to know it from every which way and the more I knew, the more I needed so I told myself that everything, all of it the huge self feeding monster, was love. Even though I knew it wasn’t.”

I think I’m following his train of thought, but yeah, I’ve been wrong on that account before tonight. There’s no way in hell I’m going to make him stop and explain though, if this is what Pete wants to say, the least I can do is shut up and let him.

“See, love isn’t obsession, it isn’t wanting to swallow the person whole or suffocate them by making yourself the only thing you’ll let them know. It’s wanting the world to know them, see them, not as a reflection of you, but as something amazing in their own right. It’s wanting to stand on the highest thing you can find and shout look at this person, not because I’m telling you to, but because they’re more fucking cool than I’ll ever be. That’s what I wanted to scream when Ashlee was there beside me, look at her, not me, I’m nothing, she’s everything…why could people never see that? Why couldn’t she?”

If somebody was watching us, I’m sure they’d think Pete was looking at me, but he’s not. He’s gazing at nothing over my left shoulder, past my ear, hell he looks like he could watching something past Burbank. I wonder if it’s Ashlee he’s seeing. And does it make sense that I don’t really want to know if it is? It’s me not wanting any kind of confirmation on my thought that keeps me quiet still, because Pete’s hands are twitching which is a dead give away that whatever he’s trying to say still isn’t finished with.

“But even with the understanding I thought I had about love, I was still wrong. Because along came Bronx. This tiny little thing that makes nothing but demands on you, wants everything you can give him and then wants even more again. Patrick, I can give him everything, all of, and it’s not smothering him, it’s loving him. He’s a baby, that’s how they’re meant to be loved, with everything you’ve got. Nothing is too much when it comes to him. I’m not so stupid that I don’t know it’ll changes when he’s older and he has to make his own mistakes that’ll make both of us cry, but even then, I can’t love him too much, it’s impossible. How I love, loved…love Ashlee, I’d known that before, just once, but there was a familiar echo over all of it. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel it again, I don’t know if I want to, but Bronx, I didn’t expect that, I didn’t know…I couldn’t. It’s something else I may never get again, because nobody’s going to be lining up to have more babies with me any time soon, but I have him and I’m loving him the right way, Patrick. And it feels like I’m getting loved back the right way as well.”

His hands are still now, curled in his lap and, finally, he meets my eyes. I can see…peace. In Pete Wentz’s face. Fuck me.

“I’m fairly certain that doesn’t answer the question you didn’t ask, but I just thought you should know it, all of it. Just because. Just so you know.”

Yeah, now I know. I just don’t know what it is.

Pete knows the difference between obsession and love. And it wasn’t Ash that taught it to him.

That leaves…

Me.

I think.

~*~

~Pete’s POV~

Patrick’s face can be so much to fun to watch, you can see every thought he has spark like tiny fireworks when he’s not trying to be all cool. It’s the last thing he’s even thinking about attempting right now, so I see the moment everything clicks.

And then I see the flash of doubt. 

“You…love me like that? Like you did, do Ash?”

I wish I could say something that won’t feed the doubt, but I can’t. I won’t lie to Patrick ever again.

Or to myself for that matter.

“At the moment it’s loved, Patrick. I’m sorry, but past tense feelings are the ones I know were real, and mine, right now. Everything else, especially you, is still a little fucked up.”

The flash of doubt just became a flood.

“Oh. Okay.”

It’s not, but pointing that out falls into the realm of picking a fight and, no. For some reason I knew Patrick would come today and it feels like there’s a chance we may actually get somewhere. It’s a gift from who the fuck knows where, but I’m going to take it.

“You’re allowed to tell me it sucks, Patrick, that I fucking suck for telling you this when I’m in no position to do anything about it. Because I’m not and it does.”

Shifting in his seat, Patrick lefts his left ankle to rest across his right knee, mostly I think so he can pick at the soul of his shoe. Thank god he wore jeans and sneakers today, they make it easier to deal with the button down and cardigan. I like that he’s wearing his glasses and his hair is flat too.

“You don’t suck for telling me, and I’m glad you can’t do anything about it…because I don’t know what I’d want you to do.”

I can’t help feeling like I’m dragging Patrick down, and I know I shouldn’t think that. Or at the very least acknowledge the part of me that sounds way too much like Gabe telling me that Patrick has an equal – at least – share in the creation of this mess. But I’ve never blamed Patrick for anything in my life and even know, after everything, I have no idea how to start.

“You shouldn’t want me to do anything, ‘Trick. You should do what you’ve been doing, go be…Patrick. Without Pete.”

With a roll of his eyes, Patrick’s fingers attempt to send his hair in fifty impossible directions. Well that and I think he just tried to pull a couple of handfuls of it out.

Yeah, I frustrate the man. Always have…and I hope I always will.

“No, Pete, just no. I’m slowly understanding that I’ve made nothing but mistakes with you since we stopped being Fall Out Boy and forgot to remember everything else we were to each other. But you can’t pull this passive aggressive crap on me. You and me, Pete and Patrick, we’re fucked. And contrary to popular belief, I did not need Saporta’s fist buried in my gut to tell me that. But we’re getting somewhere, somewhere that’s not just better, it’s new, and I like it. I screwed up, Pete, when I thought the only fuck up was you. You have to let me own that, and make up for it. It just…like I said, I don’t know what to do with…”

Gabe saw Patrick…and did…yeah, of course he did, focus Pete.

“The fact I was in love with you?”

“Yeah, that.”

I know the answer to this. Remember what I said about love being all about wanting everybody else to notice the person beside you and happily let them ignore you? Yeah, that.

“You don’t anything with it, not right now.”

Patrick mouth opens again and I just hold my hand up to him, palm first, cutting him off.

“Whatever you’re thinking you have to do, Patrick, you don’t. I told you I’m as confused as fuck about everything right now, and I’m sorry, that includes you. The only thing you *have* to do is show the world how fantastic you’ve always been. We’ll figure out Pete and Patrick together, we’ve got time, right?”

I like the concept of time. Taking my time, having time on my hands. Realising it’s not the enemy. And it’s only taken me thirty years to get here.

“Yeah, we’ve got time. Just…there’s one thing I’ve got to say, Pete, and you’ve got to promise me you’ll actually hear it. Will you listen to me, please? This is important.”

“Okay.”

He moves again, bringing himself to the edge of his seat, resting his elbows on his knees, holding his hands out to me. 

“I know I’ve said some stupid shit in the press, and I can say I’m sorry from now until Justin Bieber gets inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I still said them, they’re out there. I am sorry. I can’t say I didn’t meant them, because when I said them, I did…I can’t say I’ve changed my mind, because I don’t know if I have. But in shooting off my mouth without my brain in gear I made you feel like you’re not good enough for me, like I’ve out grown you and for that, Gabe should have…done a whole lot more than he did. You’re my best friend, I’ve lived the best part of my life to date with you and I should be fucking kicked for forgetting that. And don’t you fucking dare say it’s okay, or all right, or some such shit.”

Because, yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say.

“All right then, I won’t. But I need a break, ‘Trick. Can we please go order some pizza? Maybe watch a movie?”

“If you order me a salad, sure.”

I don’t get smart, and I’m not asshole enough to make fun of him. I just nod and smile.

“Sure, I can do that.”

Patrick follows me inside, heading for the dvd’s. Please, like I don’t know we’re gonna end up watching Fargo for the thirty third time.

~*~

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion the universe is a fickle bitch. I mean, c’mon, she gave me Bronx, and Patrick and Fall Out Boy, all amazing in the best way possible. The only hiccup is that right now I want to fucking kill Patrick more than I want to take my next breath!

The last couple of weeks have been…good. Not perfect, because, you know, still me here, but we’ve found a common ground that’s kind of level, and right up until tonight didn’t seem to have a lot of pot holes. I don’t know, maybe I’m off kilter because Bronx went back ho-to Ashlee tonight and Patrick’s feeding off that. Or maybe, Patrick’s upset or stressed or Christ knows what. But either way we got back on our fucked up argument tilt-a-whirl of death and I’m going to hurl all over he’s shoes if this ride doesn’t stop in the next five seconds or less.

Yeah, I can be the grown up and do this. 

“Patrick, stop, just fucking stop. We’re going in circles, endless fucking spirals that making me sea sick and given that I’m the master of motion that goes nowhere, that’s saying something. I don’t know what we’re arguing about and I’m fairly sure that you don’t either. We said we wouldn’t do this, that the past was done with, but apparently we were wrong, again, so I’m just going to get it all out, and then you can return fire and we can either deal with it, or you can leave, simple. Some days I don’t know what’re working towards here, and I freak out because I don’t know what you want from me. The past couple of years I’ve felt like the equivalent of Pluto in your universe, you know, about as far from the centre as possible and then down graded from a planet to a lump of rock. And then, ta da, you’re here all the fucking time because of Gabe, or Joe, or Andy, or, I don’t know, fucking Santa Claus, and that fact that it took all of them to get you to even talk to me again doesn’t exactly do wonders for my self esteem, Patrick. So yeah, that’s me. Your turn.”

It did occur to me that I don’t think I mean to say all of that, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s Patrick I’m talking to. I’ve always given him more than I meant to.

More than either of us ever realised.

I’m tired, and this is the last thing I have the energy for tonight. I wanted a quiet night, I had every intention of letting Patrick pick out the movie then falling asleep. So much for that idea. Right now I don’t even have the energy to stand upright anymore. The overstuffed chair that I can remember Ashlee picking out catches me as my legs give out. It’s big enough, or I’m small enough, that tucking myself into the back left hand corner is easy. Letting my eyes close is just as simple, and let’s face it, I don’t need to watch Patrick pace. I’ve spent weeks of my life doing that already. And I’ll be dead for about ten years before I forget any of the Patrick’s I’ve met.

Why isn’t Patrick talking? Is he waiting for me to say something else? Haven’t I said enough? Fuck, we could be here a while. I stopped filling every awkward silence I was involved in right about the time Ashlee did nothing but tell me to shut up for about a week straight. 

That should have been my first through to three hundredth clue shit was bad between us, shouldn’t’ve it?

Yeah, I never claimed I couldn’t do delusion with the best of them. 

It’s easy to tell when Patrick stops pacing, his socked feet dragging on the rug make more noise than you’d think. But he’s still not saying anything so I fall back on therapy breathing 101. Counting the oxygen in and out of my chest, concentrating on nothing but the sensation of filling and emptying my lungs and somewhere along the line, I think I drift closer to asleep than awake because when Patrick finally attempts to break the silence, my eyes flinch without opening and my heart races ahead of my ability to exhale.

“I don’t know what I want, Pete.”

The past few weeks, all the screaming, the fighting, the peace we occasionally found, the movies, the chinese food, it’s all been for nothing? So Patrick can tell me he still doesn’t know what he wants? Colour me…over it and anything but surprised.

I think my answer catches both of us by surprise though.

“Then leave.”

For once I don’t over qualify myself, using twenty words when two will do. Wow.

“What?”

Yeah, that’s shock in Patrick’s voice. And he said I couldn’t get that reaction anymore. Go me.

“If you don’t know why you’re here, or what you want, just fucking leave. The only thing we’re accomplishing at the moment is beating each other black and blue without the cool bruises to show for it. And if all it is is you and me pretending we still want to know each other, I don’t have the energy for it. So just fucking go, Patrick. We’ll try again next...”

Week. Month. Year. Thing.

It’s an on going work in progress kind of goal, right? And it’s nice to have goal. My therapist had a huge hard on for them. Of course, those goals are meant to be about me, not Bronx, or Gabe…or Patrick, but what all of them don’t know won’t hurt them.

“I don’t fucking want to leave!”

“Then tell me what the fuck you do want!”

See, Patrick, when you yell, I can scream back at you even louder.

Thank god Bronx isn’t here.

“I want my fucking friend back!”

Finally, I open my eyes kind of surprised he’s not all up in my face like he would have been when we finished the clusterfuck that was the Folie a Deux tour, I thought I could feel him there. But, no, he’s on the other side of the room, looking at me like he has not idea who I am.

It’d be way too bitter to tell him ‘welcome to my world, Stump’, right?

Yeah, I know. 

Strange enough though, I know the right answer to give Patrick, and when I speak, my voice is…I guess level works. Even if I know it’ll break and stumble before I get all of this out. But I’m not going to match Patrick’s ear splitting volume. I can do this without that.

“Gabe told me a couple of months ago, that the Patrick that I loved more than almost anything, the one who sang my words, kept my world revolving around him was gone. I didn’t want to hear it, but Gabe has a habit of making me pay attention to shit I’d rather not listen too. What didn’t occur to me though is I’m not the me I was back then either.”

Yeah, I probably should have clicked to before now, but I never claimed to be quick on the uptake.

“This me now, it’s all there is. I’m not as naïve as I used to be, even if I never thought I was to begin with. I’ve got more battle scars on the inside than I have on the outside, and there’s way more of both kinds than there used to be. My edges are rougher than they ever were, but my centre is more vulnerable than before because I don’t know how to hide it anymore. I’m everything I was, but I’m less and more as well. I’m trying and failing, stopping and starting and praying like fucking hell I’ll make it through missing as little of what used to be me as possible. That’s the me that’s here now. I know you don’t know him, you’ve barely met him, but Gabe told me I should get to know the new Patrick. I’m kind of hoping you’d like to know the Pete.”

I did it. I got it all out and it was…the thought process was complete. Fuck me, I have grown up. 

However Patrick just looks…stunned for want of a better word. Abso-fucking-lutely gob smacked. Shocked the shit out of him twice in one night, damn, I haven’t done that in, well, I’ve never done that.

I’m not really enjoying being back to waiting though.

Eventually, he comes closer and sits in the chair opposite mine, head in his hands, elbows on his knees.

Still waiting.

“You’re not a complete stranger, Pete.”

Like a good boy, I bite back the words the words that’ll just set spark to another round of fire. See, I’m not that fucking stupid after all.

“Maybe that’s because you see the packaging you recognise, Patrick. When I look at you…it’s just not the same.”

Patrick opens his mouth, probably to yell some more, but I’m desperately trying to gather my words because I just want him to stop. One hand waves in mid air between us as the other rakes through my hair.

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, or that I’m not proud of you, or that I liked you better when you were fat, fuck, I could care less what you looked like as long as you’re happy being you. I’m just saying you look so different, your clothes, your hair, your you, it makes it just that little bit harder to cling to the hope that somewhere in there is the Patrick that made my words mean what I wanted them to, even when he didn’t have a fucking clue what on earth I was fucking on about.”

As an explanation that wasn’t one of the better ones I’ve come up, but I think I’ve used my quota of sensible tonight and that’s the best I can do. 

This time it’s Patrick that closes his eyes, before he drops is hands to between his knees, dropping his chin to chest. Whatever he’s doing, processing, makes him nod to himself before he opens his eyes and squares his shoulders before he speaks.

“I think I’m still me, Pete, just a me that I can be as content with on the outside as I am on the inside. I’m still the guy that plays too many instruments, writes music and has a tendency to over arrange that music when there’s nobody to grab my horns and pull them in. I might be a bit better at the whole front man thing, but I’d like to think that’s because I learnt from the best. Maybe it is easier for me, because apart from the hair, when I look at you, I just see Pete. A tired Pete, but Pete none the less. And, for the most part, I know you. I know that nobody ever sees as many of your scars as you see yourself. Having said all of that, I realise how fucked we are. I’m not even overly sure how we got there, or even exactly when we started the journey, I just know I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to get phone calls from Joe and visits from Gabe telling me shit I should already know…that you should have told me yourself. I love Pete Wentz, I have since I was about sixteen and wanted to strangle him just as often as I wanted to…do something more. It’s just, like I said, I don’t know how we got here, so I have no fucking idea how we get back to were we were either.”

“We don’t.”

“What?”

Okay, Pete, sometimes it’s not over explaining yourself, sometimes you do need to use all twenty of those words.

“We don’t, we can’t, go back, Patrick, I think that’s the point I’ve been trying to make all along. Or one of the big ones at least. What we have to decide is if we want to go forward. This is our starting point, right here, right now, me all battle weary and beaten, you all Patrickness and ready to take on the world. Do we bear arms side by side, or do we kiss and walk off into separate sunsets?”

“I want to be the guy that’s always got your back. I was once, and I want to be him again.”

“I just want to be your friend.”

For now, and maybe forever, that’ll be enough.

But best friend, brother, something else, whatever this may or may not meld into, that whole friend thing is the base, the stability, the beginning. And when Patrick smiles at me, for the first time since two strangers entered my life, one in Chicago, the other serving me with divorce papers, I feel like world isn’t going to end after all.

Change is change. Good, bad, whatever, you survive it. Eventually. Knowing that even if you can’t see it yet, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, that helps. 

Grinning back at Patrick, I finally start to unfold myself. I’m not giving up all of my protective layers, but I can relax maybe one or two.

“If I go grab a couple of pillows and a quilt from my bed, will you hang around and watch that movie with me, ‘Trick?”

My friend ‘Trick.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“There’s some juice and, maybe some non Bronx type snacks in the kitchen, you’re in charge of them. I’ll be right back.”

Ten minutes later, I walk back into the living room, to find Patrick has lost his shoes, as well as the cardigan and dress shirt, leaving him sitting there in jeans and a plain white under shirt. The coffee table holds two filled glasses and a bowl of something I doubt we’ll ended up eating. He’s also on the sofa now, where there’s room for two. I don’t say anything, just hand him one of the pillows, then sit myself down beside him, throwing the quilt over both of us.

And tuck my favourite Count stuffed toy between us.

“Pete?”

My answer probably won’t make sense, but I’ll give it anyway.

“I’ve never crashed and burned when I’ve had him with me.”

Patrick reaches for my hand, tucking it into his and dropping it down in front of Count.

I guess my answer made sense after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2012 Bandom Big Bang. I swear those mods need medals! 
> 
> And I know this is not the Patrick so many people probably clicked the link looking for, but if you made it to the end, thank you!


End file.
